


Calling All Heroes

by whymzycal



Category: Saiyuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Human Experimentation, M/M, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:27:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25948069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whymzycal/pseuds/whymzycal
Summary: Evil scientist are turning civilians into rage zombies. Team Theta is created to to stop them.
Relationships: Cho Hakkai/Sha Gojyo
Kudos: 12





	1. Assembling the Team

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in a world pretty much in line with our own, but with a few small changes (i.e., the greater metro area of SanFrisco instead of San Francisco, though state and country names remain as we know them). Kanzeon's incarnation in this story is referred to with feminine pronouns since that's how She usually presents herself in the manga, so I took that as an indication of what She prefers. Also, it's full of graphic novel-style violence. Just so you know. Originally written for the 2014 7th Night Smut exchange.

"Thanks for being here on time, boys," said Director Kannon. She gave the two newer guys a nod, then aimed a micro-glare at Sato as he sat down. Johnny caught the edge of the look because he was always lumped in with that asshole. One of the drawbacks of being part of Team Alpha, he guessed. 

"This meeting is locked to Priority One operatives," Kannon continued, voice brisk. She snapped her fingers, and the lights dimmed. Sato's eyes narrowed and Johnny felt his stomach tighten in anticipation, like always, as the other two guys leaned forward in their seats. They sat back again when the wall-sized screen behind the director flickered on to show a larger-than-life teenage girl, her face contorted in a rictus of inhuman rage. Her hands were bloody to the wrists. Her chin and the right side of her face were wet and crimson, too. 

Arterial spray, unless Johnny missed his guess. Ew. And what were those little chunks on her bottom lip?

"Is that her victim?" said a soft, cultured voice, vaguely familiar. He'd heard it over comms once or twice and seen the dude—Henry Cho, or something like that—in the canteen now and again. Johnny didn't turn his head much, but he still took in the way Cho's mouth twitched in a microscopic grimace before smoothing back into a polite mask.

Johnny looked at the screen again. Oh, _yuck_. That wet bag of slop at her feet had once been a man. A middle-aged businessman, going by the flecks of gray in what was left of his hair and the cut of the suit jacket still clinging to his left arm. The rest of him was a pulpy mess of shredded skin, blood, exposed muscle, and bone chips.

"Yes, her fifth," said Kannon. She was tall with a lush figure, long black ringlets, and sensual (though perpetually smirking) lips. She wasn't smiling now. The assistant director, Jeremy Shin, stood next to her, impassive. He was too still, none of his usual, good-natured exasperation with the Director evident in the lines of his posture.

Well, shit. This looked seriously fucked up. Johnny glanced at Sato, whose permanent frown seemed frownier than usual. So Sato agreed. Great.

Kannon flicked a finger, and the image was replaced with two rows of four squares, each containing another almost-inside-out person, except for the first one. An awkward Hawaii DMV photo of the bloody teenager smiled uncertainly at them.

Carrie West, age seventeen, from Honolulu. She was five-three and just over a hundred pounds. 

Jesus. A little bitty thing like her, tearing several people apart with her bare hands? Johnny'd seen some fucked-up things, done plenty himself, but this …

Jee _zus_. A tremor of nausea shimmered through Johnny's midsection. 

"How the hell'd you stop her?" he asked.

Kannon arched an eyebrow. "Marksman?"

Sato nodded once. "It took four shots to bring her down."

Johnny did a double-take. "What, did you miss?" he said, incredulous. "No way! Or—"

"The first three didn't take. One in her left thigh, one in her right kneecap."

"Didn't slow her down at all," Kannon said.

Johnny whistled, and next to him, Cho and the other guy shifted in their seats.

Sato continued, expression grim. "The third was a head shot, but I had to sever her spine to bring her down."

"Shit," Johnny breathed, and Cho went stock-still Carrie West's crumpled form appeared on the screen. A small, round hole sat just above and between her eyes: a perfect kill shot. A kill shot that hadn't worked.

Johnny was still gaping at the screen when the other guy—a kid, really, by the look of him—spoke.

"Hey, what's that? That, uh, goo—right there, pooling from under her back?" he said, pointing.

Johnny pursed his lips. He didn't know this guy at all. Cho, at least, had been on the periphery of a couple of ops with him and Sato since clearing probation six months ago. But this one? He looked like he was barely out of college, all wide golden eyes and messy brown hair. Way too young for Priority One status.

"That would be a bio-silicate residue," Cho said flatly. His eyes, a luminous pine green behind his unobtrusive, wire-rimmed glasses, flashed.

Johnny did a double-take. Yeah. They'd, like, literally flashed. What—?

Director Kannon shot Cho a quelling look. "We know."

"I destroyed everything in Centipede Institute's lab. Every _one_ ," Cho rasped. Johnny felt the hairs on his arms begin to stand up, and the air in the room grew sharp with the taste of ozone. 

What the hell was going on?

Sato glared at Cho, but before he could open his mouth and say something that would get his pretty face punched, the kid put a hand on Cho's forearm and Assistant Director Shin cleared his throat.

"That's why the four of you are here," Shin said.

Kannon nodded, and the screen shifted to show the words _Global Oversight Agency Special Initiative: Team Theta_.

Sato sighed. "Fuck."

Johnny raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? You got approval for the Super Squad? What the hell am I doing here, then? I'm strictly spy-and-assassinate material."

Shin looked pained, his usually jaunty mustache and goatee drooping. "Operative Sha," he began, but Kannon waved him to silence. She aimed a predatory grin at Johnny, and his stomach sank.

"You just answered your own question, Proteus. Nobody below Committee or Director level knew about Theta, and yet?"

Johnny groaned. "Aw, c'mon! The shifts in the encryption keys are all predictable if you have Priority One access. It's not like I had to look that hard, okay?"

"I told you we needed to rethink the encryption protocols," Shin muttered. "The Committee's decisions are compromising security!"

Kannon smirked. "Proteus is exceptional, but I'm sure the Committee will take your point," she said.

Sato leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Can you _get_ to the point?" he snapped. "I have better things to do than sit around with this idiot"—he jerked his head toward Johnny, who just rolled his eyes—"and the rest of you jackasses."

"Director Jackass to you, cupcake," Kannon said over the sound of Shin's outraged splutters. 

Sato only glared. "Whatthefuckever," he said, and Kannon's smirk transitioned into a prim smile that didn't suit her at all. 

Uh-oh, Johnny thought. We're in the shit now.

"You're all here because you meet the requirements for an ultra-elite response team: Team Theta."

Cho pursed his lips. "'Theta' in reference to the brainwaves of certain individuals with enhanced or anomalous TH-5 chromosomes," he said.

"Yep," said Kannon, popping the P-sound.

Sato stood up. "Then I'm out." He looked almost pleased, Johnny noted. The usually downturned corners of his eyes and mouth were so straight you could use them as levels.

Kannon snapped her fingers and pointed at Sato's chair. "Park it, kiddo. You might not be a super on the genetic level, but you've got mad skills and the tactical experience we need. Plus, you always finish your paperwork. I need someone who can act as handler and team leader since Theta's going to be as autonomous as possible, reporting directly to me or Jeremy."

Shin stood a little taller as Kannon said his name, suddenly the very model of professional pride.

"Goddammit," Sato said.

Johnny smiled. "Maybe you should miss once in a while, dude."

Sato shot him a dark look and sat down again, pulling a battered pack of Marlboros and a lighter from his pocket. Johnny wondered if he had any Hi-Lites on him, and he was thinking about rummaging in his jacket until he saw the assistant director's face.

"Nope," said Kannon sharply before Shin could open his mouth.

Sato's dark look grew even darker. "Hurry it up, then." He settled himself back in his chair, glowering at everyone indiscriminately, but Kannon, Cho, and the kid were unfazed by the force of his ill humor. Johnny'd been immune to Sato's variations on bitchface for the last four and a half years, of course. Shin, though … It looked like Sato could still get a rise out of him. Shin's brow was furrowed, and he stared at Sato, who ignored him with long practice.

The screen shifted again, divided into quarters. One for each operative at the table. Johnny didn't need to see his or Sato's info, but he was interested in Cho and the kid.

**Cho, Henry. Codename: Pulse.  
5'11", 155 lbs. Age: 33  
Priority One operative, active 2/7/12; full status granted 2/8/14.  
Abilities: bio-electric generation, up to 1 billion volts.  
Black belt in jiu-jitsu, expert boxer.  
PhD in physics, Stanford.**

Johnny stopped reading before he got to the mission log and studied Cho openly. Cho usually sat alone in the canteen, and anyone who tried to strike up a conversation crashed into his chilling politeness. On the one or two occasions Johnny'd seen someone recover from the rebuff or take exception to it, Cho got … sharper, or something, and glacially civil in a way that even the other Priority One operatives found unnerving, let alone the more regular personnel.

Yeah, Henry Cho wasn't someone to fuck with if you cared about your health, and being a super explained most of it. He knew nobody could finish shit with him once they'd started it.

Cho returned Johnny's gaze, expression mild, and then looked back at the screen.

"Johnny is your given name?" he inquired.

"Yeah."

"Interesting. And you're … Satoshi Gordon?" Cho said, glancing across the table at Sato.

Sato's jaw flexed as he ground his teeth. "It's Sato. Or Marksman," he said flatly.

Cho inclined his head. Johnny couldn't tell if he was fucking with Sato or not, and he didn't think Sato could tell, either. But Sato wasn't going to call him on it. He looked wary. Probably, Johnny realized once he glanced back up at the screen, because Sato'd been on the mission to bring Cho in. Cho wouldn't have seen him coming or felt the tranq dart that'd taken him down, but Sato was there. Johnny would've been in on it, too, but he'd been in Istanbul, infiltrating a bioweapons facility. He remembered hearing rumors of the man who'd shut down the Centipede Institute, though. Whispers of some real hinky shit had been coming out of Nevada for a while, but none of the recon or infil teams had managed to get in. It was supposed to be Alpha's next op, but then they hadn't needed to go in.

Henry Cho was the sole reason why.

Johnny shivered. He saw Cho smile a little, noticing, and quickly looked away, at the kid's stats.

**Son, Goku. Codename: Powerhouse.  
** 5'6", 130 lbs. Age: 106 (missing since age 23, 1931)  
Priority One operative, active 6/21/14; recovered 9/12/13; reanimated 1/12/14. 

"No fucking way!" he blurted, twisting in his chair to get a better look at the dude. "Goku Son—are you shitting me?!"

Kannon grinned. "No, he's the real deal."

Son looked sheepish. "Call me Goku," he said in slightly accented English.

Well, hell. Goku Son was supposed to be a myth. Johnny knew a bunch of crazy fuckers, like the Cabal who'd enhanced him, had believed the legends of a super strong, nearly invulnerable man who'd appeared in China in 1928. Goku'd fought against some of the crazy-ass monsters unleashed by power-hungry magicians and scientists all across Asia and Europe, and then, when tracking a mind-controlled Yeti-and-Lion chimaera, he'd disappeared.

The Cabal scientists who'd enhanced him had claimed they had blood and tissue samples from Goku Son, but the serum developed worked on only point-five percent of the kids they'd tried it on—something to do with TH-5 chromosome receptors, if Johnny remembered it right—and the serum couldn't be derived from someone who'd been enhanced by it. Half the kids had died before they'd figured that out. And the Cabal's lab and data had been destroyed when Johnny was seventeen, after he'd been with the Cabal for four years. They'd finally found his brother and enhanced him, figuring compatibility ran in families.

They'd been right. But a twenty-two-year-old street tough was a lot more capable than a scared thirteen-year-old kid just snatched off the street. Jimmy'd destroyed the place, incinerating the rest of the Goku Son samples and the serum created from it, and setting Johnny free.

Johnny could still see the look on Jimmy's face, the fear, elation, and desperation as he ripped open the door to Johnny's cell with his bare hands, grabbed him in a crushing hug, and then thrust him toward the exit, telling him to run.

He'd run. He'd run from Nevada to Wyoming, and then to Washington. He'd fallen in with the wrong people—people who used and refined the skills and enhanced reflexes given to him by the Cabal—and turned assassin to keep himself safe. 

He never found Jimmy, though he'd looked with his new contacts and abilities. And he'd never been recaptured by the few remaining Cabalists, though it'd been a near thing.

The last one, an enhanced, unbalanced, and still-loyal freak named Kami, had almost caught him on a job in Melbourne. Beatrice Kannon had saved him and offered him a job in lieu of prison for his crimes. 

Johnny'd been an operative ever since, working his way up to Priority One in just a couple of years. That'd all happened five years ago. Everything had changed.

He looked around the room, just now noticing that the screen showed something new and that the encrypted tablet in front of him had been activated.

Everything was about to change again. Johnny could feel it.


	2. Operation Moreau

The lights flickered, and Johnny smirked at the weasel-faced goon standing over him with a gun. Literally weasel-faced, not figuratively. Some jackass Evil Scientist had been performing experiments on a low-level mobster's brute squad, and while Johnny didn't care about a bunch of stupid hitters who'd gone all were-beast, these fuckers had begun intimidating inner city neighborhoods, offing the competition, and causing trouble for some of the clinics and medical supply companies downtown. Plus, the intel he'd gathered a week earlier, just after Team Theta was assembled, suggested that the people responsible for the feral zombie people were also responsible for the freaky were-goons. It made sense. Weirdoes bent on manipulating people for nefarious ends usually knew each other. Sometimes, Johnny suspected they had some kind of Evil Scientist Club or whatever.

The lights flickered again, and the goon's beady little eyes narrowed as he lifted his head to sniff the air, whiskers and nose twitching. "What the hell—?" he rasped, and then he looked back down at Johnny, whose smirk widened until it showed teeth. "The fuck're you grinning about, dead guy?" the goon growled. He kicked Johnny in the ribs and pointed his gun at Johnny's forehead.

"Ow," Johnny said, curling around the goon's foot and absorbing most of the blow without doing himself any damage. He twisted his shoulders slightly to get his hair out of his eyes. Having his hands tied behind him was annoying, dammit. "It's a countdown."

"A wh—"

The storeroom went dark, but Johnny was ready. He jackknifed his body expertly, feet striking the goon's hand to dislodge the gun, and then he rolled out of the way and bounced upright as the rope from around his wrists slithered in loose coils to the concrete floor.

The goon might have been genetically manipulated, but that didn't seem to give him any real edge in the mano-a-mano line. Johnny had him unconscious and trussed up by the time Goku wrenched the door open.

"Oh, sorry," he said.

Johnny patted him on the shoulder. "No problem, kid. I didn't want to waste any time picking the lock, anyway." 

Goku smiled. "That was lucky, then!" he said, and then he cocked his head. He reached back to grab his staff and twisted it in the middle, breaking it into two Eskrima sticks. Johnny'd tried picking the staff up during their first full-team training session. He had slightly enhanced strength, speed, and healing capabilities, but the staff had been heavy as hell. It must've weighed about a hundred pounds, no exaggeration, and Goku waved it around like it was made of cardboard. Jeez.

"Hey, did you see where they put my utility belt?" Johnny said. He reached down and grabbed first the gun and then the leftovers of the rope the weasel dude had used to tie him up with, looping the end expertly into a monkey's fist knot and giving the whole thing a couple of practice whirls. He would've preferred his darts or a knife—guns were so noisy, and they were more Sato's thing—but the were-dudes had scented him, snatched him from the elevator shaft, and disarmed him pretty handily. He hadn't put up much of a fight, of course, knowing that the rest of Theta was in position, and he'd figured he might find out something useful while he was being interrogated.

He had.

"Got your belt, Proteus," Sato said in Johnny's ear. Johnny just managed to keep himself from jumping in surprise. Some spy-slash-assassin he was. Sheesh.

"Oh, hey," he said. "I thought my comm went down when they punched my face the second time. Nice! Where are you, Marksman?"

"Pulse and I have just finished sweeping the building, and we're headed for the exit. Cleanup will meet us there. We have three hostiles, one who seems to be a scientist."

A scientist. What was a scientist doing with these two-bit thugs? "I've got one weasel tied up down here, but I counted at least eight when I got jumped."

The comm crackled, and then Cho's voice faded in. "—six fatalities. The genetic manipulation apparently left their internal organs fragile. A stun-level pulse proved too much for most of them, and it took me a few tries to adjust to the proper voltage." 

"You manage to save the ringleader?" Johnny asked, grabbing his weasel-goon by the ankles and dragging him out into the hall.

"Unfortunately, no. His heart was one of the weak ones," Cho said. He didn't sound very sorry, but to be fair, Johnny wasn't that sorry, either. "But the scientist should prove extremely valuable. I believe she's on GOA's watch list."

Johnny huffed a little as he shoved the goon into the elevator. The guy was huge. Had he been that big before his change? If not, Johnny could see why the dude might have some serious problems inside. He hit the button for the ground floor and kicked the thug's feet clear of the doors on his way back out into the corridor.

"Proteus here. One for pickup, ground floor service elevator," he said. He rejoined Goku in the stairwell, and they made their way back to the ground floor together, both on the lookout. Even though the building had been swept and the cleanup techs moved busily from room to room, Johnny'd been on enough missions like this, on both sides of the conflict, to know they might have missed something.

His caution proved unnecessary. The building was clean, and once the medics had checked out his bruises, already fading, he climbed into the nondescript black SUV with the rest of his team.

"Did you find anything interesting? Other than the scientist," Johnny asked, clipping on his utility belt and settling himself into his seat. He always felt naked without the belt when he was in his tac suit, and the feel of it digging into the small of his back when he was strapped down with a seatbelt was comforting.

"Encrypted laptop with the scientist and some samples of goo," grunted Sato as he rearranged his holsters to click the seatbelt closed. He, Johnny, and Goku all had similar tac suits: black, close-fitting, with reinforced Kevlar-like panels throughout. The only differences were the various attachment points for their preferred weapons, small modifications based on their individual abilities, and small flashes of color to help differentiate them in the field.

Cho's suit, though, was pretty creepy. It was designed along the same lines as everyone else's, but it also had a full-face hood with weird polycarb lenses over the eye holes. When he had it on all the way, he looked like some sort of freaky black ops alien soldier or whatever. But that was the point: Cho needed full coverage, even over the eyes, because when he passed a certain amount of current through the suit, tiny bio-electric cells like the ones in octopus skin contracted and dilated, changing the suit's color to blend in with his surroundings. 

The first time Johnny had seen what Cho could do, he'd had to stop an involuntary sound of admiration. Johnny could blend in with anyone—he could pass as almost anyone else with enough prep time—but he couldn't disappear into walls the way Cho seemed to. Cho's hand-to-hand skills were pretty awesome, too. He was better than Sato and nearly even with Johnny, despite not having any of the physical enhancements Johnny did. Nobody was as good as Goku for sheer power or fighting ability, though.

"What'd you find out during your interrogation?" Sato asked. He nodded at Cho, who turned the key and then guided the SUV out onto the street to act as escort to the prisoner transport van.

"These guys are under contract to some corporation called Oxblood Industries."

"Oxblood?" Sato frowned and turned to look at him. "They were the ones funding the bioweapons lab you took care of a couple years ago, right?"

Johnny's fingers itched for a cigarette, but Cho had a strict no-smoking policy in enclosed spaces, and nobody, not even Sato, was willing to disagree with him over it. The dude was kinda scary, even if you were the world's best sniper or spy-slash-assassin.

"Yeah," he said. The itching continued, only now something was scratching at the back of his mind. "Hey, do we know who the sci—" he began, but he was interrupted by Cho's shout of warning, Sato's curse, and the sound of an explosion that flipped the SUV over. It tumbled down the street for a couple dozen yards and came to rest on the driver's side, smashing Johnny up against the asphalt. The window was reduced to shattered safety glass scattered over the ground and in his hair.

Goku was up and out of the rear window just as Johnny cut himself free of his seatbelt. His head rang, but he knew from experience it'd settle down pretty quickly. He scrambled out after Goku, who leapt on top of the SUV's passenger side and yanked Sato through the side window.

"I'm fine. Get down, idiot!" Sato shouted as the sound of gunfire erupted behind them. "Martinez, Smith—report!" he barked.

"—tinez is down, repeat: Martinez is down," came Operative Smith's tense voice through Johnny's comm. "We're taking heavy fire. I think the transport behind us is compromised. I can't h—" 

Johnny heard a gasp and a wheeze. "I'm hit," Smith said. "Can't hear anything from Rollings or Liu's teams. Do you have contact, sir?"

Johnny turned back to the SUV's cargo compartment and bashed open the gun locker. He grabbed a couple of automatic pistols and darted back out, meeting Sato's eyes. Cho stood next to him, hood snugged down over his face.

"We're coming for you and the transport, Smith. Stay down," Sato said. He motioned with the pistol in his right hand, and Team Theta moved out, spreading apart to take advantage of the cover afforded by the vehicles and structures on either side of the street, and to cast a wider net for the gunmen.

The transport, unlike the SUV, wasn't on its side. The front was demolished, though. Johnny looked away and concentrated on the fleeing prisoners, who were streaming into another van. A giant of a man in strange, silvery body armor stood by the door, shoving them in. One, a woman in a white coat, stumbled and fell, and as she got back up, looking over her shoulder, Johnny felt his chest seize. 

No. The Cabal scientists were all dead or imprisoned. It couldn't be her; Team Gamma'd found her body four years ago in a weapons exchange gone wrong.

"Huang!" he shouted. The woman's mouth dropped open, and Johnny took aim with a hand that suddenly felt unsteady. 

This was bad. This was really, really bad.

Johnny began to squeeze the trigger, but before he finished, Huang screamed, "Destroyer!" and the giant man turned.

Johnny's shot went wide.

"The fuck's wrong with you?" Sato shouted in his ear. He came up behind Johnny and pointed his own gun at the man, who was aiming his weapon. Johnny twisted sideways, sweeping out his leg to knock Sato down, and the man's shots cut through the air right where Sato had been standing. Sato's shot flew harmlessly into a warehouse window to the left.

They got up to pursue almost immediately, but it was too late. The van went tearing away down the street and disappeared.

"One dead, five wounded," Cho said from somewhere behind them. Johnny, still feeling unbalanced, turned to see Cho standing there, hood off and glasses catching the sunlight, black gloves dark and slick with blood. He stripped them off mechanically. "Smith and the others will make it, but we lost Martinez. And the prisoners are all dead or gone."

"Where's Powerhouse?" 

"Following on foot," came Goku's voice through the comms. "But I think I lost 'em. I saw them turn west on Seventh from a block behind you—I think it was them—but by the time I caught up around Chalmers, the van was gone."

Sato holstered his gun and clenched his hand into a tight fist. "What the fuck did you think you were doing?" he gritted, staring at Johnny. Johnny shook his head.

"I know them." His voice sounded thin to his own ears, and Sato must've picked up on it because he relaxed his fist. His pissy glare, of course, stayed intact.

"Know them? From where? Who are they?"

Johnny sucked in a deep breath and fumbled in his utility belt. He always kept an emergency smoke in there, a stale Hi-Lite he kept forgetting to change out for a fresher one. He saw Cho's lips thin with disapproval, but when his fingers fumbled his lighter, Cho took it from him and held the flame steady.

Johnny inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, savoring the rush of nicotine. "Thanks, man," he said. He took another drag and then opened his eyes as the sound of running feet came closer.

Goku was there now, too.

"The scientist—I could've sworn it was Huang. Huang from the Cabal, I mean."

Sato's eyebrows went up in disbelief. "She's on the killed list. The Cabal was declared officially defunct four years ago."

"I know," Johnny said. "Dude, I know; I was there when Kannon called it. But it was her. Or it was her eviler twin. I _know_ her, all right? And I'm sure. Because that big guy—"

"She called him 'Destroyer,'" Sato said.

"Yeah." Johnny closed his eyes again. His knees felt shaky. "That was Jimmy."

The silence, broken only by the distant sounds of the GOA rescue team a few blocks behind them, was deafening. Johnny opened his eyes again and found Sato watching him with something that looked suspiciously like understanding. Shit. He looked away, at Goku, who looked puzzled but concerned. Cho, though …

Cho couldn’t know about Jimmy—it hadn't been in Johnny's file during their first meeting—but there was a knowing look in his eyes nonetheless. It made the back of Johnny's own eyes feel hot and prickly.

Johnny exhaled heavily, tilting his head back to watch the way the smoke made a pale, wispy cloud against the backdrop of the bright blue sky.

"Jimmy's my brother. Last I saw him, the Cabal still had him. I hoped he got away, too—I've been looking for him—but I guess … I guess not."

Goku shifted uncertainly. "It might not be him," he offered.

Johnny felt a sickly smile spread across his face. "It's him," he said, "it's him," and then he nearly jumped out of his skin when Cho's hand came to rest on his shoulder. But Cho didn't say anything. None of them did, not until their new transport pulled up to take them back to headquarters.


	3. First Debrief

"Huh. That went well," Johnny said to no one in particular. He looked around the debriefing room. Kannon and Shin had left, saying something about satellite coverage and picking up Huang's tracks that way.

It was a long shot, though, and everyone knew it. They'd blown Operation Moreau, figuring they were on to a bunch of two-bit thugs who'd lead them one step up the bad guy food chain, not catapult them somewhere near the top. If former Cabalists were involved, Johnny was pretty sure they'd take countermeasures—and have the resources for it.

And if Jimmy … Well, Jimmy'd always been the smart one. If he'd been with the Cabal for the last fourteen years, even a greatly weakened Cabal, he had over three times the amount of their training than Johnny.

Johnny scrubbed his hands over his face and then through his hair. Seriously, this fuckin' job. Normally he was fine with all the excitement, but missions like this upped his stress factor by, like, a thousand. He glanced at the red hair caught between his fingers and uncurled them to let his hands drop to the table. If this shit kept up, he'd probably end up bald or something. That would make getting wigs on a lot easier, but it would seriously affect his game.

His game. Yeah, sure.

A gentle hand touched his shoulder, and Johnny felt a micro-flinch twitch through his upper body. He looked up and saw Cho standing next to him.

"Oh. What's up, Cho?"

Cho smiled, and unlike the smiles that made the other operatives and even Kannon blanch a little, this one seemed genuinely warm. Sympathetic, even. And not, thank God, pitying in the slightest. Because if he thought Cho pitied him, Johnny'd take a swing, electric eel impression or no.

"You should call me Henry," Cho said, "since I'm about to invite you to dinner."

Johnny raised an eyebrow. "Dinner? I think it's mystery-meat-over-pasta-in-red-or-white-sauce day at the canteen."

Cho—no, Henry; sheesh, what a name, though Johnny guessed it suited him—smiled wider.

"Not at the canteen. I like to cook after a debriefing, and I haven’t had many people to cook for since I got off probation."

Cooking? For real? "Yeah, sure," Johnny said, looking around. "Are Sato and Goku coming?"

Henry shook his head. "Sato's got to finish the preliminary mission report, and Goku is headed for the gym. He said something about wanting to spar with the Sensational Boulder."

"Oh, yeah." Johnny stood up and scrubbed his hand over his face again. "Gat and that weasel the Reverend are back from Belize, and I’d heard Gat had a new sparring buddy. I guess I should've figured it out." He smiled. "I bet they're worth watching."

Henry nodded. "I worked with Goku right after he was revived and being integrated into the Agency. I watched him go through some agility and hand-to-hand trials with the Boulder. They're fairly well matched."

"I'll bet." Johnny eyed Henry speculatively. "You ever spar with Gat?"

Henry shrugged. "Not really. They did have me check to see if I could stop him and Goku, though."

Johnny shook his head, imagining it. "Wow. I'm pretty sure you can."

"Only just with Goku," Henry said easily, "and he doesn't stay down for long. I can't sustain the voltage needed to incapacitate him for more than a few seconds."

"Jeez," Johnny said. "You can generate what, the equivalent of a lightning strike?"

"More or less, though as I said, it's not sustainable. Or practical, in most cases." Henry glanced at the doorway and then looked at Johnny speculatively. "My place is just a few blocks from here. Meet me in an hour, hour and a half? It'll give me time to get cleaned up and start dinner."

Johnny looked down at himself. He was still in full tac gear, sweaty and grimy.

"Yeah. Yeah, lemme just shower and I'll meet you there. Where—?"

"Fifty-eight Parish Street, number one-fourteen."

Johnny smiled. "Cool. Can I bring anything?"

"Beer, if you drink it. Something that goes well with spicy food."

Johnny scratched behind his ear. Dammit, dried sweat was itchy as hell once a dude remembered it was there. Yuck. "Thai spicy, Mexican spicy, Indian spicy, or—"

Cho pushed his glasses further up his nose so the lenses caught the overhead fluorescent lighting, flashing a brilliant white. "Indian. Kadai Paneer." 

"Cool," Johnny said. "Yeah, see you in an hour or so." He waved at Henry and then made his way down to Alpha's on-site quarters. Most of his shit was still there because he didn't really see much reason for living off-site, and since Sato had his own place nearby, like Henry, the little suite of rooms was more than big enough for him. Theta would likely get communal quarters, too, and much bigger ones, so he'd probably have to move his crap when that happened. And share with Goku. But he liked the dude; his openness and enthusiasm were kind of fun, if a little overwhelming sometimes.

He took a quick shower, pulled on a gray t-shirt and some comfortable jeans that hugged his ass just right, slipped into his leather jacket, and went to the little liquor store on Swift Avenue. They carried Southern Tier Unearthly IPA, and that would be good with the heat of Indian food, he figured.

It was. The hot, rich scent of the eggplant didn’t do the actual dinner justice, Johnny decided. He pushed away his plate and took a last sip of his beer.

"Whoa," he said. He stifled a belch and patted his stomach. "That was amazing. I haven't had anything that good since Alpha's last op in London."

Henry stood and picked up their plates, waving away Johnny's unspoken offer to help. "Thank you. It's my sister's recipe."

Johnny glanced around the room. A small framed picture hung on the wall just near the front door.

"That her?" he asked, "and you?" He got up from the tiny table and wandered over to study the picture, plates and cutlery clinking in the background.

This Henry, a few years younger than the one he knew, stood next to a woman who shared his fine features. Her eyes were the same deep green, her skin the same pale shade, but her hair was lighter, a dark brown to Henry's jet black.

Jeez. They were gorgeous. And okay, he'd noticed that, but Henry's cool, too-polite exterior didn't invite ogling. Much.

"Yes, that's Karen. She was my older twin."

Sweet baby Jesus! Johnny jumped a little. He couldn't help it; Henry was stealthy as hell, and Johnny wasn't used to people sneaking up on him. Nobody else could do it, not even Sato, sniper-trained though he was.

And then it sank in. "Was? I'm sorry," Johnny said.

Henry stared at the picture, then touched Johnny's elbow with his fingertips. Their pressure left a faintly buzzing tingle in its wake, and Johnny cleared his throat. 

Henry looked down at his hand and pulled it away. He didn't hurry, though.

"My apologies," he said. "When I feel a very strong emotion, I sometimes—"

Johnny shook his head. "Nah, it's okay," he said quickly. "I get it. Sort of. I'm not as strong as Goku and I don't have your—" he waved vaguely at the space between them "—but if I'm not paying attention and get all worked up … well. You heard during the debrief." He glanced back into the main room. 

"Ah. Would you care for another beer?" Henry asked. He studied Johnny, eyes dark and unreadable, and Johnny fought the urge to squirm. For fuck's sake, he was a spy. An assassin! He didn't get rattled. He was un-rattle-able; he rattled everyone else!

"Yeah, okay," Johnny said after a minute, "but I don't want to drink alone like a loser, okay?" He sat down on the couch and took a beer bottle from Henry. The cap was still on—Henry must've been off balance, too. The dude was a freaky good host, and there was no way he'd forget the cap otherwise. Johnny could tell.

He took a surreptitious deep breath. That made him feel better. A whole lot better, actually.

He caught the edge of the cap under his thumb and gave a practiced flip. The cap leapt into the air, and Johnny caught it neatly in his other had.

"Here," he said. He wedged his beer between his knees and made grabby hands at Henry. "I'll do yours, too. One of the perks of enhanced strength, I guess."

The corners of Henry's mouth slid upward, then came down. The smile—if that's what it was—didn’t reach his eyes, but he handed over his bottle and then came to sit at the other end of the couch. He twisted in his seat to face Johnny.

"What do you know of my recruitment?" Henry asked.

"Only that Sato tranq'd you not long after you tore apart the Centipede Institute." Johnny took a long, slow swallow of the beer, eyes on Henry as it flooded across his tongue and reignited some of the heat from the Kadai Paneer. Or maybe that was from the look Henry was giving him.

Johnny finished his swallow and rested the bottle on his knee. "I'm guessing it had something to do with your sister."

Henry went still, like a predator sighting prey, and Johnny licked his lips as Henry said, "Yes."

Johnny waited, then took another sip as Henry continued.

"They discovered that she, too, had an ability. She could manipulate water, but her ability wasn't quite as strong as mine. Somehow, they found her and took her. I was away at Harvard on a guest lecture tour, and when I returned home, I could find no trace of her.

"It took me a year to find her, and by then it was too late. The things they'd done to her—how they'd twisted her and her ability, turned her into a weapon that could manipulate the very blood in a person's veins—"

Henry's fingers trembled, and the glass bottle in his hand glowed with a faint, crackling light. He took a deep breath, and Johnny found himself inhaling in time with him.

"They turned her into something monstrous," Henry said. "When I found her, her skull was open, her brain exposed, encased in some strange bio-silicate matter that allowed them to control her."

Jesus, Johnny thought. Sweet Jesus, that was awful. Right up there with some of the most horrible things he'd seen as an assassin-for-hire and an operative.

"There was enough of Karen left to ask for death." Henry's eyes glittered behind his glasses.

Johnny swallowed. "I'm sorry," he said. Henry'd done it. He loved his sister, so of course he'd done it. "That's when you took down the Institute?"

"What I hadn't already destroyed on my way in, yes." Henry's voice was so cold that Johnny could hear the snap of breaking ice in it. Or maybe that crackle was from Henry's ability.

Johnny drained the rest of his beer, feeling the pressure of Henry's gaze on him. His skin prickled, but he wasn't sure how much was him and how much was the static field he was pretty sure Henry was generating.

Dammit. He wanted a cigarette, but he knew better. 

"I thought you should know," Henry said a minute later, breaking the silence. "Sato knows, of course, since he was on the team that brought me in. And Goku knows because we talked a little when he first woke. He had trouble adjusting, understanding why he was here. I thought it might show him why he was needed."

"And you're telling me to even the score, since you know about me and Jimmy and the Cabal now." Johnny fidgeted with the beer bottle, then set it down carefully on the coffee table, perfectly centered on a coaster that depicted some kind of molecule. Or maybe it was DNA. He didn't really care.

"I guess we're a lot alike," Johnny said finally.

Henry let out a bark of harsh laughter. "Not remotely! You were on the run, trying to survive," he said, "and I—"

"So were you," Johnny said. "Your sister was everything to you." He leaned forward and looked Henry full in the face. "I don't think any one of us would have done much different, and anyway, you can't change the things you did. Believe me, I've tried." He laughed, the sound bubbling up and leaving a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. "You're here now, making a difference. It'll have to be enough."

Johnny shrugged at the look on Henry's face. "Hey, that's what Sato tells me. He's a giant asshole, but he knows his shit. And when it comes down to it, I think he has a point."

The pressure in the air receded, and Henry pursed his lips, looking thoughtful. "Hm. I suppose he might."

Johnny grinned. "Don't tell him I said so. He's already insufferable."

Henry inclined his head, and Johnny opened his mouth to say something witty, but the quip turned into a jaw-cracking yawn before he could manage a single syllable.

"Aw, sorry," Johnny said when the yawn subsided. He stood up and stretched, arms reaching for the ceiling. His shirt rose up, exposing his hipbones and navel, and when he was done, he swallowed his second "sorry."

Henry looked at him, and Johnny felt the hairs on his arms stand up. His skin tingled.

"You could stay," Henry said softly. He licked his lips, and goddamn if Johnny didn’t wonder whether the heat from the Kadai Paneer would still be on Henry's tongue and how it might feel on his bare skin. How the zing of Henry's ability would feel on his bare skin.

"I could," Johnny heard himself say. "There's no rule against it, as long as it doesn't fuck up the team dynamics."

Henry took off his glasses. "I'm not interested in fucking the team," he said. His eyes shimmered. Johnny wasn't sure how much was Henry's bio-electricity and how much was his own interest.

"No? Haven't thought about it?"

Henry paused. "Of course I have."

Johnny snorted, and most of the tension from the mission and everything else drained away, replaced by a fluttering anticipation that curled up from his groin.

"Sato's too much of a prick," Johnny said, "and Goku's too …"

"Yes," Henry agreed, and stood up to kiss him.


	4. Second Debrief and Operation Offside

It was a good thing he was tougher than an unenhanced dude, Johnny thought. Otherwise, sitting down for the second debriefing would have been uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat and smirked, wondering how Henry felt. They hadn't gone easy on each other.

Henry's eyes widened briefly behind his glasses, and the left corner of his mouth twitched upward. Nope. Not uncomfortable, just self-satisfied.

Johnny could relate. And then he snapped to attention as he heard Kannon say, "—once Proteus is done making googly eyes at Pulse."

"You fuckers," Sato sighed. "You goddamn fucking fuckers."

Johnny grinned hugely. "Yep," he said, popping the P-sound the way Kannon did when she was feeling feisty.

"I'll only say this once," Sato said. "If this interferes with the team at all—"

Henry cleared his throat and peered at Sato from over the rims of his glasses. "I beg your pardon," he said in a prim voice, tidying the encrypted tablet in front of him so it was precisely aligned with the edge of the conference table, "but are you impugning my professionalism?"

Sato stared at him just long enough to show he wasn't, like, afraid of Henry, merely cautious, and muttered, "Not yours."

"Hey!" Johnny protested, sitting up straight. But before he could really lay into Sato and get Henry and Kannon on his side, Shin walked in. He exchanged glances with Kannon, and the screen on the wall behind her lit up.

"Research and forensics have come through," Shin said. The screen showed a bunch of technical reports paired with photos and diagrams of Carrie West's brain and the were-thugs as he began speaking. 

"The bio-silicate that invaded Carrie West's body and used her to rip apart those five people share attributes with silicate trace in the were-men's tissues: skin, bone, and organs," Shin continued.

The tablets and the wall screen flashed a grid of helixes and virus-like cell structures. Several points on the various shapes glowed, and Johnny saw that they shared similar curves in several places.

"It has DNA," Henry observed.

Kannon nodded. "We also noted similar genetic attributes in samples obtained from the Centipede Institute."

Johnny glanced at Henry, whose face remained utterly impassive.

"I sense a 'but,'" said Sato, "so get on with it. What do we need to know?"

Shin swiped his fingers across his tablet, and all the screens shifted again.

"The were-men also shared the genetic markers we've seen in those with shape-shifting abilities. The silicate acted as a sort of binder between the weres' own DNA and the shape-shifter's DNA. But even with as fully as the silicate can invade a nervous system, the DNA splicing is imperfect."

Henry let out a quiet noise of understanding. "Which is why their bodies were so weak."

Kannon nodded. "Yes."

"Okay," Johnny said. "I think I get it. I just don't get how the silicate didn't overrun them and take over like it did with Carrie West. Last week, you said she was brain dead when she tore those people apart and when Sato brought her down. You said the real messages were coming from her spinal cord, where the bio-silicate was concentrated."

Sato huffed. "Let me guess—your science guys are still working on it."

Shin's forehead creased and his mustache drooped disapprovingly at Sato's tone. "They are," he said shortly.

"What we do know, darlings," said Kannon, stepping forward to put herself between Sato and Shin, "is that someone is manipulating the bio-silicate. Molding it, somehow, and giving it rather terrifying properties."

At the end of the table, Goku shifted uncomfortably. "I have a question. I'm sorry, Henry, but what about Karen Cho? She wasn't brain dead when exposed to this stuff, right?"

Well, shit. Trust the kid to go right for the awkward question.

"No, she wasn't," Henry said, voice soft. His eyes narrowed a little, making him look dangerous.

"We think it reacts—integrates—differently with anomalous, or even enhanced, TH-5 chromosomes," Kannon said quickly. "But we're not sure why."

"And you won't test it on anyone," Johnny said just as quickly. "Not even the creepy bastards locked up in the Oubliette."

For once, Kannon didn't smile. "No. We're running tissue tests and have been since Centipede, but the data is inconclusive. And we haven't been able to generate a reliable computer simulation to explain the differences."

Sato huffed again. "Great. So how were these people infected? Or are your guys still working on that, too?"

Johnny saw Shin's eyes roll heavenward and his lips twitch like he was praying for divine intervention or something. He understood the impulse when it came to Sato.

"Play nice, Satoshi," said Kannon warned him. Sato glared but subsided, and she continued, "Carrie West was injected with the bio-silicate—a lumbar injection. We think the silicate fused with her spine and invaded her brain, killing all higher functions in order to prevent conflicting directions between it and her brain."

Johnny shuddered, and everyone else in the room looked pretty grossed out, too.

Henry drummed his fingers on the conference table and stared pensively at his tablet. "Do you have any idea who might be the mastermind? Or even just the supplier?" he said.

Shin grimaced. "We're not sure. We've backtraced 'Oxblood Industries'—" he inclined his head at Johnny "—and can't find anything definitive. The nearest we can tell, Oxblood might be a subsidiary shell corporation for the same backer as Centipede's. Some of the tricks used to move the money and secure the information look similar, but we're unable to—"

The high-pitched vibration of several phones buzzing at once cut Shin off, and everyone in the room darted hands into pockets.

"Shit," Sato said. "Are you serious?"

Johnny stared at his phone. "A dozen of those rage-zombies? At the Hammers vs. Illusionists game?"

Kannon and Shin's fingers flew over their tablets, and an alert tone sounded through the conference room and out in the corridor.

"Looks like it," Kannon said to Johnny. "Suit up, Theta. I want you in the choppers in five minutes. We'll be dropping you just outside the stadium. Local law enforcement and stadium security are evacuating the area and have been notified about severing the spines, but …"

"They're not me," Sato said, already heading out the door.

"They're not _us_ ," Goku corrected him as he fell in line.

Johnny didn't say anything as he followed the rest of the team down to suit up and head for the hangar. He didn't say much on the short ride to the stadium, either.

"My darts won't be very useful," he said to Henry when they were hovering over the stadium's main parking lot, just at the edge of the chaos below.

"You have a knife, don't you?"

Johnny shifted his weight reflexively, testing the security of the sheaths strapped in various places. "Yeah, several. A gun, too, though I'm not as good as Marksman."

"You'll be fine." 

They leaned into the helicopter's tilt as Sato clipped onto a line and kicked the excess out the door.

"I'm getting into position," he said. "Powerhouse, you take the middle. Pulse, go left. Proteus, you go right. I'll take down as many as I can from here. Try to herd them where I'll have the best shot."

Sato's sniper rifle peeked up over his shoulder—the serious one, Johnny noted.

"Copy that," Johnny said. Henry and Goku echoed him, and then Sato was out the door, dropping down to perch atop a small construction crane.

The helicopter veered off and dropped Henry and Goku at their locations. Johnny saw Henry slither through a mass of terrified, blood-spattered soccer enthusiasts, spread his fingers wide to unspool the filaments in his gloves' fingertips, and jolt a rage zombie down to the ground. Henry was on the man, plunging a K-Bar into the base of his spine, and then up and running toward the next pocket of carnage in less than sixty seconds.

"Proteus," the pilot said.

"Yeah, ready," Johnny replied. He turned his back to the door, grabbed the line, and stepped backward, into the air, as the chopper tilted.

He disengaged teen feet up and hit the ground hard, rolling to his feet and unsheathing two knives. "Get out of here," he shouted to the people running all around him. He gestured toward the lot's entrance, about fifty yards behind him, where the police and what remained of stadium security had thrown up a defensive perimeter.

"Hey, Eye in the Sky," Johnny said as he ran forward. He came up alongside a male rage zombie covered in gore and dodged its reaching arm. He spun behind it and sank his knives in at the top and base of the spine. The creature dropped, lifeless, in a spreading puddle of blood, tissue, and silicate ooze.

"One down for Proteus; moving north to meet up with Powerhouse and Pulse. How many left?"

"I have visual confirmation of eight kills, Proteus," came the pilot's voice.

"Nine," said Sato in Johnny's ear.

"Marksman, two have moved back into the stadium," came Henry's voice.

"Number ten down," said Goku. "I'm near north entrance two and leading in."

Johnny herded a few more terrified people in the direction of the perimeter.

"Uh, no easy entrance nearby, but I can climb up and meet you from the inside," Johnny said.

"Copy," said Sato. "Eye in the Sky, pickup for two. Pulse is almost at my position—can you drop us in the nosebleed seats behind the west goal line?"

Static crackled briefly, but Johnny heard the pilot acknowledge, and he sheathed his knives and headed for the stadium's outer wall at a run.

"They're on the field, Marksman," said the pilot.

"Say again?" said Johnny, from halfway up the outer wall. Shit, if they were on the field, he might as well just wait for the rest of the team to neutralize them.

"Targets on the field," the pilot repeated.

The comms crackled again, and Johnny heard, "Eleven and twelve are down. Repeat, eleven and twelve are down. Proteus, where the hell are you?"

Johnny rolled his eyes and leapt sideways twice, jamming his fingers into small cracks before pulling himself through a vent and dropping into a women's restroom. Shrill screams echoed off the tile, and Johnny held up his hands in the nonthreatening-est gesture he could manage.

"It's okay," he said to the group of civilians huddled in a corner as far from the door as possible, "It's okay, you're safe. They're gone. Eye in the Sky? Send in cleanup, would you? And get someone to escort the civilians out." He smiled gently at the knot of people on his way out the door.

"Just stay there," he said over his shoulder, "until they come and get you," and then he ran for the stairs that led down to the field.

Before he got there, though, the stadium's PA system erupted into deafening static, and an oily laugh rolled through the hallway and out into the stands.

"What the fuck?" Sato shouted.

Johnny changed direction and charged through the first doorway that led out into the stands, high above the field. The jumbo screens ringing the stadium pixelated, and a tall, sallow man with stringy black hair, glasses, and a lab coat blew them a kiss.

"The Global Oversight Agency, I presume," he said. He waggled his fingers in a cutesy little wave. "How nice for you to meet me."

Johnny heard voices in his ear yelling about frequencies and transmission origins and recognition programs, but he was busy watching the guy in the lab coat.

"I thought it was time I spoke and you listened. Here's what I want: the leaders of all the nations affiliated with the Agency, plus the equivalent of each nation's yearly GDP in platinum or gold—I'm not fussy—delivered to me out at the old Agency R&D lab in Colorado. Director Kannon should feel free to leave me a card. She can address it to Dr. Null, formerly of the Priority Zero special research program. You have forty-eight hours. Failure to deliver will mean the unleashing of one hundred of my angry little friends on every major city in the world."

The man laughed again, blew another kiss at them, and his image faded.

"Holy shit," Johnny said over the comms as Sato snapped at cleanup to move their asses and figure this shit out.

"You said it," Goku agreed.

Henry said nothing, but Johnny was pretty sure he was already plotting this Dr. Null's messy demise. When he saw the grim smile on Henry's face a few minutes later, he was sure of it.


	5. Operation Dividing by Zero

"Ah, Jesus … oh, fuck!" Johnny moaned. Henry sucked harder, pulling Johnny forward until his cock nudged the back of Henry's throat. Henry's slick fingers pressed inside him, skimmed over his prostate, and then curled. An electric tingle zipped from Henry's fingertips straight into Johnny's balls, and he came with a strangled yell that faded into a heartfelt groan when Henry pushed him onto his stomach and slid inside him.

The rhythmic thrust of Henry's hips and the building waves of energy quickly wrung a second orgasm from him, and Johnny's vision went fuzzy at the edges from the strength of it. Then Henry thrust deeply one last time and gripped Johnny's hips with a delicious, bruising strength as he shuddered silently against Johnny's back.

"Seriously, dude," Johnny panted several minutes later, "I don't even know. Wow."

Henry laughed and bent over him to examine Johnny's bruises with a critical eye. He touched the largest one with a fingertip, and a jolt of static electricity snapped against Johnny's damp skin. His spent cock gave a weak twitch.

"Later, man," he yawned. "We gotta sleep. We leave in five hours."

"All right," Henry said softly. He slid toward the edge of the bed, but Johnny grabbed his wrist.

"Nah. Stay," he mumbled. "It's not a big bed, but there's room. Sato won't sleep in his bunk next door, and if he does, he already knows we're fucking, so who cares?"

Johnny could feel Henry's gaze on him, but he just scooted back and made room, lifting the blanket, eyes closed all the while. He relaxed and let his arm fall when he felt Henry's warm weight lean up against him.

He could still feel that heat and the phantom pressure of Henry's hands as the stealth chopper sped through the night, heading for some old missile silos alongside SanFrisco Bay. 

"Let's go through this one more time," Sato said. He brandished his tablet, and Johnny rolled his eyes at Henry and Goku, whose own tablets were already showing the outline of _Operation Dividing by Zero_.

For fuck's sake. Kannon thought she was so cute.

"You're certain the backtrace is accurate?" Henry asked again.

Johnny saw Sato's jaw clench, and he leaned over to enlarge the pertinent lines in the plan's intel section. "Yeah, positive. Wireless and Megabyte are never wrong, and they were plugged in when Null broadcast his demands. It's impressive how he hid his signal's origin and bounced it everywhere, but Megabyte's not fooled by switches, and Wireless verified the origin independently. They weren't part of the Agency when Null was in R&D, so there's little chance he coulda planned for them."

Sato gave a grudging nod. "He's right. They're never wrong."

Johnny jerked a thumb at Sato. "He's just pissed because he didn't know about Priority Zero."

"Nobody knew about Priority Zero except the Global Oversight Committee. Our useless director barely knew of its existence, let alone what it was for," Sato said testily.

Henry glanced between the two of them. "Perhaps next time, they'll share with the rest of the class. I imagine this whole situation must be rather embarrassing for them."

Sato harrumphed. "I can't believe they thought he died in that meltdown," he said darkly. "He was an expert in xenomorphic genetics. Didn't they consider he might plant his own DNA in that chunky skin soup left over from the breach? Fucking science guys."

"That's seriously messed up," Goku said. "Did you read the whole file?"

"Yeah," said Johnny. "Ennis Nii. Who the hell named Ennis ever does any good?"

Deep parallel lines appeared between Henry's eyebrows. "Who, indeed."

They sat in silence for the next half hour, lost in individual contemplation until their pilot clicked over to their channel.

"Almost to the drop," he said. "The Director and A.D. say Wireless is scanning all frequencies and Megabyte is monitoring all cyber traffic, encrypted and unencrypted."

"Copy," acknowledged Sato. He toggled something on his tablet and nodded once. "Backup's in place."

"It'll take them a good twenty minutes to roll in," Johnny said.

"We don't want to spook the fucker, do we?" Sato replied.

"He probably won't expect us. It's fifteen hours to the deadline, and he thinks we think he's in Colorado, right?" Goku asked.

"Yeah. Gamma and Delta have it covered. They go in once we've confirmed mission success here or if we're blown," Sato replied. "Gat said they're expecting a trap."

"So should we," Johnny muttered. Henry looked at him sharply. "What?" Johnny said. "Paranoia's a valid option." He counted off on his fingers. "Optimist, pessimist, paranoid."

Sato ignored him and dropped his tablet into the mesh pocket next to his jump chair. "Everything might be a trap. Be ready and be smart. Idiots," he said. He stood up and motioned for them to do the same. "Check 'em."

Johnny checked his rig while Henry checked his, and then they checked each other.

"Green," Henry said.

"Green," Johnny responded.

"Green," echoed Goku and Sato.

"Go for drop," said the pilot, and they rode their lines down to the grassy, rolling foothills of the decommissioned SanFrisco naval weapons station.

The soft landing put them a mile and a half from the first silo. Johnny reviewed his mental map of the area, trying to recall the old silo locations, the logistics team's forecast of likely changes and additions, and that little confirmed intel Megabyte had found.

”Should be an access tunnel about a quarter mile east of here," Johnny said quietly.

"Right," Sato responded. "Exhaust vents, too. We'll split up when we hit the first one."

They moved out, swift and silent, over the springy ground. Johnny, on point, froze when he heard a soft footfall to his left.

"It's just a tule elk. There's a herd in this area, you know," Henry said. "The conservationists are quite pleased." 

Johnny looked again. Yeah, okay, he saw horns or antlers or whatever, round eyes reflecting a greenish-yellow light, and the faint gleam of moonlight on razor-sharp canines.

"Holy fuck," he breathed. He reached for a pinpoint tranq dart in his utility belt and flicked it at the not-an-elk. The animal tossed its head, staggered in his direction, and went down.

Sato turned to study it, then looked at Johnny. Henry crouched down beside it and lifted its lip.

Yep. Razor-sharp canines.

"It seems we'll have to be cautious of the local wildlife, too," Henry observed.

"Well, that's just great," Johnny said. "I expect this shit _inside_ the evil scientists' labs, not out roaming the hills. Jeez."

Sato checked his silenced tranq pistol. "Shut up," he said, tone conversational. "Be more careful, morons. Take out Bambi and Thumper quietly, and don't let anything bite you."

"Copy that," Johnny muttered. Goku just grinned, and Henry … well, Henry had his hood on, face obscured and eyes hidden. That fucker was probably smiling, too.

"Keep moving," Sato ordered, and they double-timed in the direction of the nearest silo, pausing only to stick darts in vampire-fanged rabbits, red-eyed squirrels, and four more not-really-elks. But then they reached the first ingress point, a narrow exhaust vent cut into the hillside to release pressure from missile launches.

"I'll take it," Johnny said. Sato nodded, and he and Goku started off further east. Henry paused, so Johnny grinned at him. "See you inside," he said.

Henry nodded once and fell in with the other two.

Okay, then. Johnny slipped his infrared glasses down over his eyes and checked out the vent. A glimmering network of lines crisscrossed their way down the first ten feet that slanted sharply down into the hill. He squinted. It looked like another network was set up at the bottom, too, where the vent led into the main chamber.

That was okay. Johnny relayed the info to the rest of Theta and to Backup, received their acknowledgment, and popped the vent cover with some corrosive gel judiciously applied around its edges. When the gel was done eating through the metal, Johnny blew on it to deactivate it—DNA triggers were creepy but awesome—and keyed in the reflecting code for his tac suit. That, he figured, would take care of the laser tripwires.

He was right. He chimney-climbed his way down in no time flat, disturbing neither tripwires nor the air.

He double-clicked his comm mic to indicate his success, and got acknowledgments and then confirmations of the others' ingress.

Okay. Time to earn his paycheck.

The vent opened into a small, horizontal tunnel that opened up much wider about ten meters from the vent. A couple of doors broke the unrelieved gray of the concrete at the end of the tunnel, one directly in front of him, and one a couple meters closer in the left-hand wall.

Johnny mentally reviewed the schematics of the silo compound one more time and frowned. This wasn't in the plans. Or in the projections.

Right. Improv it was.

The wall door led nowhere. It was just a random door that opened onto another concrete wall. Johnny wondered if it had been sealed or if it was some lame evil-scientist joke. Because in his experience, evil scientists did shit like that.

Johnny turned to the other door and studied the recessed electronic keypad beside it. Goku would probably just smash through the door; stealth wasn't really the kid's thing. Henry would short-circuit or circumvent it with a simple touch and an electromagnetic pulse. Sato would try the electronic cracker, get impatient, and then shoot the fucking thing, probably.

Johnny went with the cracker. He pulled the tiny cylinder from his infil pack and pressed it against the keypad's upper left corner. The cracker let out a faint hum, just outside the range of normal hearing but audible to his enhanced ears, and waited.

Ninety seconds later, give or take a few, the door's lock disengaged. The cracker kept humming, blocking the unlock signal the door was probably sending to a central computer. Thank you, science guys, Johnny thought. He moved through the doorway, into a room that was poorly lit at the floor and deeply shadowed above.

The rage zombie dropped from a strange alcove in the ceiling, up to his left. Johnny briefly registered the clamps that had kept it in place, and then it was reaching for him. Another alcove revealed itself, and a second, larger rage zombie fell from it and flattened him to the ground.

Inhumanly strong hands—almost as strong as Goku's—tore at his tac suit. He heard a ripping sound and felt hot breath on his shin. Johnny kicked out and scissored his legs, knocking the first zombie to the floor and then leveraging himself to clamp her arms against her torso between his thighs. He only just managed to grip her at breast level so she couldn't bite him, too. She snarled and twisted viciously, her own legs flailing against the ground and pushing him along the floor.

Johnny ignored her, except for the burn in his thighs. She was secure for the moment, and it was the other zombie, formerly some kind of athlete or bike messenger or whatever, who worried him. That one lunged for Johnny's heart, chipping the defensive plates that covered his chest.

Johnny squeezed the old lady harder, blocked the athletic zombie's face with his left forearm, and went for the knife sheathed against his right thigh. The bitey old lady almost got his wrist, but he punched her in the cheek and brought the knife up into the base of the dude's skull on the follow-through. That zombie immediately went limp, and Johnny shoved him away so he could jerk the old lady's head forward and sever her spine, too. When her body went slack, Johnny heaved in a few lungfuls of stale, dusty air and scrambled away.

"Watch for rage zombies falling from the ceiling," he said into his comm as he stood up. He scanned the room warily, wondering if there were shadowed alcoves in the floor or the walls, and then glanced over the bodies once more. There was something weird going on there.

Johnny leaned forward, knife in hand and poised to spring back if necessary, and nearly crapped himself: the slurry of blood, spinal fluid, and bio-silicate gunk wasn't just oozing from the zombies' wounds. It was oozing with intent.

Well, that was new.

Then the silicate sludge wobbled and schlorped in his direction, and Johnny took two panicked steps backward. Oh, shit. _Shit._

"It's, uh, mobile, you guys," he said. "The silicate. Gah!"

Static popped in his ear, and then he heard Henry's voice. "Don't let it touch your skin," Henry said urgently.

"No shit," Johnny muttered.

The comm fizzed, and then Sato's voice, colored with disbelief, crackled through. "What the fuck? Say again, Proteus."

Johnny side-stepped the still-approaching slime and looked for an out. A support beam or whatever running the length of the ceiling—that'd do. He gauged the distance, slapped his palms together in a shave-and-a-haircut rhythm to activate his gloves, and then turned to run at the wall behind him. He used it as a springboard to launch himself upward and clasp the beam, fifteen feet above the floor.

Thank you, tacky tac gloves, he thought.

"The silicate is, um, semi-sentient, I guess? It's moving toward me, anyway." He swung his legs up and gripped the beam with his knees and boots. They weren't sticky, unlike the gloves, but they weren't slick, either.

Sato cursed, and Johnny caught the faint _phut, phut_ of silenced bullets striking flesh. "Fuck. I see what you mean," Sato said a few seconds later. "How the hell do we slow it down?"

"No idea," Johnny said, "but I'm open to suggestions." Shit, his legs were kind of tired. His knees slipped a little, and he tasted salty copper, feeling the sting of a bitten lip as he reconsidered his position.

That little old lady zombie'd taken a lot more out of him than he'd thought. Rage zombie ass was pretty hard to kick, and he was no Powerhouse, dammit.

"It doesn't come out if you crush their spines," Goku said. The little turd wasn't even breathing hard over his comm. "But you have to turn the whole thing to jelly and give it a good twist so the spinal cord really snaps, all the way in two."

Jesus. Jee _zus_.

"Pulse?" said Sato. "Backup, you got anything?"

Johnny half listened as he concentrated on inching toward the vent opposite the door where he'd come in and almost become zombie chow. He had to move quickly; it looked like the sludge was trying to inch up the wall.

"I can fry it," Henry said slowly as Johnny reached the vent cover. Screw stealth; he wanted out of this goddamn room. He punched his way through the grate covering the vent and slid inside the airshaft.

"Does that work?" Sato asked. "Goddammit! Backup, do you copy?"

Henry breathed heavily for a moment, and then answered. "Yes, but it's not a sustainable solution. It takes repeated shocks at my full capacity, and I'm afraid I can't keep it up for long."

"Shit. Okay, I think it's safe to say we're blown. Get—"

An oily laugh—fucking Null!—echoed through the vent, the reverberations doubling and redoubling until Johnny thought his ears would bleed.

"Hello, Operatives!" Null's voice sing-songed cheerfully. Johnny wanted to punch something, but he kept moving. He didn't want to be stuck in the airshaft if the silicate ooze managed to climb the wall.

"Yes, this was a trap. Really, you're all so predictable. But alas for you, I'm not there or in Colorado. In fact, I'm not even in North America." Null giggled, a simpering sound that made Johnny want to stab himself in the ear.

"But you'll be joining me soon. My protégé, Dr. Huang—" Johnny did punch the shaft's concrete ceiling at that "—will escort you to meet me once you've been fully inducted into my mindless little army." Null's voice dropped, adopting a confidential tone. "You know, supers make the _best_ minions. They retain all the higher brain functions without any pesky autonomy or free will. You'll be much bigger, better, badder minions than my angry little soldiers, don't you think?"

Null giggled again, and then his voice went flat and chillingly ominous. "I'm looking forward to meeting you all," he said. Johnny heard a click, and everything went silent.

"What the fuck? Backup! Backup, did you get that? Do you copy?" Sato shouted in Johnny's ear.

"—gative. Say again, negative, Marksman. I was blocked," said Wireless. Her voice faded in and out. But before Johnny could worry about that, a fist knotted itself in his collar and dragged him out of the airshaft.

Johnny hit the floor with a bone-jarring thump, biting his lip again. Goddammit!

He reached for a dart to jab his captor, then froze as he saw the face behind the fist that smashed into his chin.

"Jimmy?" he choked. He got his arms up between himself and Jimmy's next punch, barely stopping it. He thought he heard something snap in his right arm, but he hardly felt it.

"Jimmy?" Johnny's head spun, and he couldn't breathe through the sudden constriction in his chest.

He was dimly aware of a woman—Huang?—screaming for Destroyer to bring him over to the vats for an injection, and of Henry and Goku and Sato shouting something else over the comms.

Johnny understood none of it. He only just registered Huang's choked-off shriek, the thud of a falling body, and Henry's "My apologies, Proteus," as an electric current that burned hotter than the sun ripped through him.

Jimmy let go, practically flinging him away, and Johnny crashed into a lab table and went down, twitching.

"Ow," he said when the involuntary spasms stopped. "Fucking _ow_! Jesus, Pulse, what the …"

His ears buzzed. Comm busted, then. It wasn't built to take Henry's mojo, apparently. He tipped his head and pulled it out, and then he remembered.

"Jimmy! Huang?" Johnny scrambled to his feet, wincing as his right arm gave a seriously pissed-off twinge.

"Right here," said Henry. He stood over Jimmy, who was unconscious and restrained with the ultra-strong cord even Goku had trouble snapping. Restrained with lots of the ultra-strong cord.

Huang, face bloody from a gash over her left eye, huddled on the floor like a sack of potatoes. She was out and tied up, too.

"Marksman, Powerhouse—I've got Proteus, Huang, and the Destroyer, And some vats of the bio-silicate," Henry murmured into his comm. "Lock on to my signal for extraction."

Henry pulled off his hood and turned to Johnny. "How are you?" he asked. He sounded tired as hell. And concerned.

Johnny gave him a half-hearted smile. "Better than I look, probably. Arm's a little fucked up, but it should be fine in a week." He looked down at Jimmy. He was still unconscious. "Yeah, better than I look." He smiled, and it felt more genuine this time. "Thanks, man."

Henry smiled back, though his expression was guarded. "I hope," he began, and then he shook his head. "Marksman and Powerhouse are almost here. Backup's on the way, too."

They studied Jimmy until Sato and Goku showed up, just a couple minutes later. They looked unruffled, the pair of them, like they'd barely been in a fight at all. Pfft, that figured.

"I hope the science guys can help him," Goku said as he came to stand by Johnny.

"Me, too," Johnny said softly. He glanced at Henry, whose eyes narrowed.

"Oh, they'll help him." He nudged Huang with his boot. "They'll have all the help they need."

Something warm and bright bubbled up in Johnny's chest. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, they will."


	6. Epilogue: Establishing the Status Quo

Johnny sat next to Jimmy's stasis tube, chin propped up in his right hand. It had taken less than a week for his arm to heal, and that had been over a month ago. Henry sat next to him, looking over the most recent information Huang had grudgingly given them. It was finally clear to her that Null wasn't coming back for her, and she'd turned out to be one spiteful bitch. But then, she'd always been that way, if Johnny recalled correctly. As for Null, his days were numbered. They'd find him eventually.

"Hey, guys!"

Johnny looked up. Goku stood in the doorway, Sato and Kannon behind him. He didn't see Shin, but the A.D. was probably lurking somewhere in the corridor.

"So, are you hungry?" Goku asked. He smiled, obviously excited. "Director Kannon says there's this great Lebanese place downtown. I'm gonna try kibbeh and something called shawarma."

"Yeah, I could eat," Johnny said. He glanced at Henry. "You?"

Henry powered down and stood up. "Yes, I could, thank you. Now, which Lebanese—"

Johnny's pocket vibrated, and he heard Kannon sigh. "What is it this time?" he asked.

"Giant moth men with laser beam eyes. Goddammit," Sato snapped.

Johnny stretched his arms over his head and looked over at Henry, who was ogling discreetly.

"Well, okay," Johnny said, heading out into the corridor. Laser-eyed moth men it was, then. He grinned. "Let's go. Time to suit up, Hero Squad!"

**The end**


End file.
